It is necessary for tooth meshing clearance and tooth tip clearance to be set on gear wheel or rack and pinion drives to achieve precise adjustment movement. If such a tooth tip clearance is too large, a traversing path may be incorrectly adjusted such that, for example, a machining operation on a workpiece, which is arranged on a traversable carriage, may be inexactly executed. If the tooth tip clearance is too small, there is increased wear between the gear rack and the gear wheel.
A linear actuator, in particular a rack and pinion drive, is known from DE 10 2004 448 A1, in which the tooth tip clearance between a gear wheel and a gear rack can be adjusted by means of an actuator. This actuator is known, for example, as a piezo actuator, a shape memory actuator, or an electrically or hydraulically operated actuator, which adjusts a gear wheel to the height of the gear rack in order to ensure zero backlash/freedom from play and dual-flank contact.
In order to achieve an adjustment of the tooth clearance and tooth tip clearance with a high level of accuracy, the existing version requires a very high-quality and space-consuming actuator and control system design, which is very expensive.